The Darling | Page 9

with a little head, little shining
eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not shake hands, but kneaded
one's hands in his. And he was always apologising. If he asked for
anything it was "Excuse me"; if he gave you anything it was "Excuse

me" too.
As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I must
explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches in my
childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor at N.,
and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their
acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, and
had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who
brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had to
talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful
name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, very
thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, with refined
and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, too, but her
brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as sugar-candy, while
hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. She conquered me on
the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed it was inevitable. My first
impression was so overwhelming that to this day I cannot get rid of my
illusions; I am still tempted to imagine that nature had some grand,
marvellous design when she created that girl.
Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy
bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight and a
passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being from her
lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile of Ariadne's
bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe in the loftiness
of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay and simple in her
manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made poetic reflections about
death, and there was such a wealth of varying shades in her spiritual
organisation that even her faults seemed in her to carry with them
peculiar, charming qualities. Suppose she wanted a new horse and had
no money--what did that matter? Something might be sold or pawned,
or if the steward swore that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned,
the iron roofs might be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at
the very busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and
sold there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the
whole household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such
refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted
her as to a goddess or to Cæsar's wife. My love was pathetic and was
soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the

peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the
workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young
lady be your bride, please God!"
And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride over
on horseback or drive in the char-à-banc to see us, and would spend
whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with the old
man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his favourite
amusement.
I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she
looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when I
touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, my
old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled side
by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward dashed
aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed aside
because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship,
touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to be
captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so
poetical!
But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold and
already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering to
her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having no
definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose life
had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future except as
very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, races, liveries,
of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, and of a perfect
swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated painters and artists,
all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over her beauty and her
dresses. . . .
This thirst for personal